


The Return of the Wolf

by Kittenshift17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-16 01:38:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13625835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kittenshift17/pseuds/Kittenshift17
Summary: Nine years after they are separated, Arya returns to Hollow Hill with a new lesson to learn from the Many-Faced God. A lesson that involves the boy she left behind so long ago. Ser Gendry Waters.





	The Return of the Wolf

****

**The Return of the Wolf**

_By Kittneshift17_

* * *

Winter had come to all of Westeros and decided to stay. Gendry Waters paused in his hammering inside the warm forge as he heard the creak of the old wooden door blowing open. He scowled when he looked over his bare shoulder and found no one there. For three days now it had been blowing open, no matter how tightly he latched it. The chilly winter winds swept inside, cooling his sweat soaked skin and making him think again of the girl he'd once known uttering the words of her highborn house.

' _Winter is coming.'_

Of late Gendry found himself often recalling her words, as though they whispered on the wind, calling out to him from far away.

It had been nine years since he had last seen Arya Stark. Nine years since she had scowled at him and stormed away, mad at him for choosing to stay and work as a Smith instead of following her to Winterfell or the Wall or Robb's doomed crusade. Yet, of late he seemed unable to get her out of his mind. These past years he'd rarely spared the girl a thought, uncertain of her fate. But now he seemed unable to forget her. She had crept in like a wraith in the night, and taken up permanent residence as a squatter in his thoughts.

There had been an attack last night. An old washer woman had been found with her throat slit as she laid in her bed. Gendry wondered if it was the similarity in the death of the woman to that of the man Arya Stark had killed when she, Gendry and Hot Pie had fled Harrenhal, that had his mind drifting back to the fierce girl he'd once known.

Shaking his head to rid his mind of such thoughts Gendry sighed and laid down his hammer and the sword he'd been repairing, striding over to the door and lacing it shut. He tensed when a shadow passed through the glowing light from his forge fire.

"Who's there?" he demanded, spinning to face the fire. When no reply came, Gendry turned to the door once more, lashing it tightly closed. He'd taken to sleeping in the forge where it was warmer, and so he made sure to lock it up tightly for the night.

His shoulders tensed again when he caught sight of a human shaped shadow against the wall beside him, illuminated by the firelight.

"Who are you?" he snarled, spinning towards the fire again. He almost wasn't expecting a reply, since when he turned there was no one there and the shadow was gone.

"I am No one" an ambiguously toned voice replied, seeming to pulse throughout the entire room, making it impossible for Gendry to pinpoint where it had come from. Moving forwards quickly Gendry picked up his hammer and the broken sword he'd been mending, ready to defend himself against the intruder he couldn't see.

"What do you want?" he growled to the room, hoping a second question might help him find the owner of the voice. His heart was beating hard in his chest, adrenaline rushing through him as the possibility of death finding him became a reality.

Derisive, slightly feminine laughter floated throughout the forge and Gendry paused, feeling as though it was a sound he'd heard before.

"I seek the boy who used to wear a Bull head helmet" came the reply, Gendry spun towards the dark corner of the forge where he'd set up his bed, striding towards the sound of the voice. He cursed when he got there and found nothing.

"What do you want with me?" he asked the voice again, trying to draw a location.

That laughter floated to him again, sounding scornful and a little bit sarcastic, as though it found his anger and fear amusing. He almost leapt out of his skin when the door he'd just lashed and locked sprang open with a bang. Running to the door he cursed when he saw footsteps in the snow leading away into the darkness.

"Did no one warn you that Winter was coming?" the voice floated back to him on the wind.

* * *

It had been over two moons ago that Arya Stark had watched through the eyes of a wolf as a familiar looking man walked through the snow and the dark at Hollow Hill. She didn't know what had driven her to it, but that morning when she'd awoken, Arya Stark, the girl with too many names who was no one, packed up her things, dug up Needle and left Braavos.

She had spent eight years there and had learned many things. So many that the House of Black and White had very little left to teach her. Before she had opened her mouth to tell the Waif she would be leaving with her true face, the Waif had beat her to it, whispering

"The Many-Faced God has a new lesson for you, one you cannot learn here from us. You know what you must do?"

Arya had nodded her head and followed the Waif to the deep recesses where she was given back her true face. They provided her anything she could want or need, as she had always known they would should she choose to leave. Travelling light but with enough warm clothing and food to survive the winter nights, Arya had crept aboard a ship returning to her homeland.

As was her duty she had granted death to those who sought it along her way, finding that more than ever, people were seeking death for themselves as the long winter went ever onwards. It had not let up in nine years now, but Arya felt as though there was a change coming soon. She knew that soon the weather would change; she could feel it in her bones and in her very soul, though she did not yet know how it would come to be. She knew too that there could be no end to the winter until there was once again a true Stark residing in Winterfell.

She had arrived at Hollow Hill almost a week ago and crept among the folk as she was wont to do, learning as many truths as she could collect and always watching  _him_. She had granted death to the washer woman Arya had heard begging for it, relieving the woman of the few coins she had. She had watched from the shadows, learning the habits of the man who was once a boy she'd run away with. Arya had no idea why the Many-Faced God had sent her here, nor why she had felt the strange aching pull beneath her breastbone as she had watched him through the eyes of the wolf moons ago.

She had crept up on him in his forge two nights ago, toying with him and tormenting him as she liked to. She'd been doing it since she arrived, purposely moving his tools and otherwise unsettling him. Testing his metal. She wanted to know if the boy she had left behind had really grown into a man, a knight of the Brotherhood, someone worthy.

Now she crouched in the boughs of a Heartwood tree, watching the boy she had known as he carried a tub of butchered bones between the house of the butchers and his forge, no doubt to use them for his craft. It was a foolish thing to be doing on a dark winter night. She knew that he heard the wolves howling in the woods, and sometimes wondered if they upset him.

Arya had come to realise that the wolf whose eyes she dreamed was once her pet dire wolf, Nymeria. She had seen the giant beast on her nights of watch, she knew that all over these parts people spoke of a wolf pack fifty strong, led by a wolf of gigantic proportions. And Arya knew from her dreams that it was true.

Winter had slowed the ever moving forces of war, rendering such a large wolf pack less to eat with fewer bodies going to war and she could feel that they were poised to attack.

"You are being foolish Gendry Barratheon" Arya called from her perch in the tree, watching the way he stopped, tense and alert to be addressed by such a name when he believed he was a bastard born.

"Who's there?" he growled at her, glaring around in the dark.

"No one" she laughed softly, amused by the way he got so easily riled up by that answer because she had been perplexing him with it all week. "And mine are not the only hungry eyes fixed upon you this night."

Arya watched the way his body tensed even more, staring in the direction of the tree where she hid. She grinned just a little bit. She longed to torment him some more, but knew better. She could feel the eyes of the pack fixed on him, edging closer. She could hear them shuffling their paws in the snow, readying for the attack. She knew it was the way this pack hunted and Arya held her breath a moment, feeling the way Nymeria slowly drew in a breath of her own, preparing to howl the start of the attack.

Arya dropped from the tree, landing lightly on her feet in the deep snow, drawing Needle as she did so. She would not kill the wolf she had raised, but she would not let the man die either.

"Run, Stupid!" Arya commanded seconds before the howl of the dire wolf seemed to shake the very earth beneath their feet. Arya was already moving, bounding through the snow with the finesse her 'dancing' teacher had taught her. She watched Gendry's eyes go wide as they caught sight of her, clearly not recognising her as she was cloaked heavily, with her hood and a scarf drawn around her face to keep warm.

She collided with him before he had taken one step, forcing him to drop the bucket of bones as she seized his wrist tightly and dragged him across the village. She could hear the whisper of many paws in the snow and the snarls and yips of the pack, excited by the hunt and by prey that ran. She could hear him cursing as she dragged him along, trying to keep his footing in the snow as he ran, the wolves snarling and snapping at their heels.

Arya tensed as they slammed the door to the forge, leaning against the door and saw him jump when heavy wolf bodies rammed into the door, snarling and trying to get to the prey that had thwarted them. Quicker than he was, Arya spun, slamming the bolts home in their locks. He'd installed them yesterday after she had repeatedly slashed her way through the lashings he used to tie the door closed and Arya was glad she had messed with him since the lashing would not have held against the attack the wolves were mounting against the door.

As soon as she'd done it Arya flitted across the room, making sure to pick up his hammer, hefting it in her hand and testing the weight. She knew that once he recovered from the shock he was likely to attack the unknown stranger who had just saved his life. Before he could think of it Arya swung herself up into the rafters of his forge, gaining the advantage of height. She knew if he attacked her on the ground she could beat him, but her training taught her to kill without hesitation and Arya would not be responsible for killing this man, no matter how much he had once hurt her.

She watched him from her perch.

His jet black hair was thick, and he'd grown it longer, so that it covered his ears and kept them warm in the winter cold. He'd grown a thick black beard as well, but Arya noticed that he had clearly trimmed it in the last day or so because it was now only stubble on his jaw. His blue eyes were wide with surprise and perhaps fear at almost being eaten by wolves, but as they moved to search for her they narrowed threateningly.

"I see you know no more of the ways of wolves than you did when you were naught but a bastard boy destined for a life on the Wall" Arya said to him, watching the way his eyes glared at her perched in the rafters, her face hidden by her scarf and shadowed by her hood.

"Who are you?" he demanded, taking up a sword when he realised she had taken his hammer.

"No one" Arya replied automatically. It was a habit, one that she would never be able to forget.

He glared up at her, clearly having a hard time working out if she was even male or female because of the way her scarf muffled her words.

"You're the one who's been toying with me" he accused angrily.

Arya laughed and watched the way his eyes unfocused slightly to hear it.

"I'm the one who kept you from turning into wolf food, stupid" she told him a little indignantly. She surprised herself to hear herself call him that. She had thought she had left the childish, snotty ways of Arya Stark far behind her.

"I'm going to kill you" he told her quietly, his eyes scanning the room clearly trying to find a way to drag her down from the rafters.

This time Arya's laugh was full of derision and genuine amusement that he actually believed it.

"You couldn't if you tried, no matter how much you think you might have become a knight of the Brotherhood Without Banners" she sneered at him. He jumped in surprise when she dropped right back out of the rafters, landing in a crouch, balancing on the anvil where he worked his swords.

"Who in Seven Hells are you?" he demanded, staring at her in shock for the way she crouched there and the way she knew so much about him.

"I am no one" Arya told him "For I go by so many names. Several of them you know, but you have forgotten I belong to them."

He stared at her a long time.

"What do you want? Why are you here?"

Arya smiled at that, though he could not see the expression.

"I came seeking the boy who used to wear a bull's head helmet" she told him for a second time. "The boy who trained as a smith in Kings Landing under Tobho Mott."

She teased him with information, enjoying the way he tensed at the name of his former master.

"The boy who met the King's Hand and was dragged from the city to join the night's watch by Yoren" she continued "The one born to a fair haired alehouse maid. The boy the Goldcloaks wanted when they came seeking the bastards of Robert Barratheon" she could see his eyes going wide now with fear at how much she knew "I came seeking one of the few who escaped when Ser Amory Lorch set upon Yoren; the boy captured and taken to Harrenhal where he worked as a smith until the day he escaped with a little girl masquerading as a boy and a fat boy known as Hot Pie."

Gendry was staring at her now and Arya was poised on the anvil, ready to pounce should he move at all.

"I came seeking the boy who fell in love with the idea of joining the Brotherhood Without Banners, knighted by Lord Berric Dondarrion, to be forever known as Ser Gendry of Hollow Hill, saviour of Brienne of Tarth when she sought Sansa Stark. I came seeking you…." Arya finally concluded. She had learned more of his accomplishments, but she could tell she had completely confused him and that he was a little afraid.

Arya smirked to herself. She found that she enjoyed the expression he wore when she unsettled him.

"Who are you?" he breathed, lowering his sword slightly and taking a step towards her "How do you know so many things about me?"

"I have already told you I am no one; I am one with many names; I am someone you used to know. And I know things about you because it is the business of an assassin to know everything" She told him, watching the way he lifted the sword high, ready to defend himself now that he knew the truth about her profession.

Arya tilted her head to one side wondering if he had ever heard her utter the answer the question she was about to put to him.

"What do we say to the God of Death?" Arya murmured, watching the way he was attempting to circle her and finding that she could turn in a circle and balance on the anvil without taking her eyes off him.

She watched the way his brow furrowed for a moment as something about her words reached out to him. Slowly Arya rose to stand tall, straightening her back and tilting her head back a little to let her hood fall from her head. She watched his eyes widen when he realised she was a girl, and saw them flash for a moment as though he recognised her before he shook his head doubtfully. Arya smirked, knowing only her hair and her eyes were uncovered.

"The answer you are looking for" Arya whispered as she slowly turned his smith hammer in her hands and offered him the handle "Is…"

"Not Today." Gendry whispered, staring at her.

Arya smiled behind her scarf, dropping backwards off the anvil to land on her feet. He kept staring at her, shaking his head, not believing what his eyes were trying to tell him.

Taking pity on him, Arya reached up and unwound the scarf from around her face, watching the way he jumped and lifted his sword when she moved, still expecting her to attack him. She laughed at him again and watched the way his eyes went unfocused to hear it, to hear the sound from his past that had been haunting him for almost a week. To finally have a face to put to the voice and laughter that had been tormenting him.

"Why do you deny what your eyes clearly know?" Arya asked him, tilting her head to one side and feeling strangely exposed to have revealed her true face like this.

Gendry couldn't believe his eyes as he stared at the black cloaked figure standing in his forge. In his soul he knew it was her, but he just couldn't believe it. It couldn't be her. He'd heard she was married, that she was dead, he'd heard horror stories about her and mourned her when someone had told him she was dead.

She had grown tall, much taller than the girl he had known. Her hair had grown long and as he stared at her he could see the way the long brown strands hung down her back, secured in a simple, Northern style plait. Her face had grown beautiful since the last time he had seen her. She had grown from a bratty girl into a woman, one Gendry had no doubt could kill him before he'd have ever known she was there. But as he stared at her, it was those eyes, those clear grey eyes that regarded him with a little amusement, a little irritation and a lot of cunning that told him it was really her.

"Arya?" he breathed, his arm and sword falling to his side as he stared in shock and wonder at the woman he'd thought to be dead and gone, the woman he hadn't been able to stop thinking about all week.

"And here I thought you might be too stupid to remember" she smirked at him.

"It was you, wasn't it? Moving my tools, breaking in here…. You killed the washer woman" he accused her, his eyes darkening a little.

Arya's face stayed impassive as she answered "I am but a servant of the God of Death, and he commanded her here time to be complete."

"You're an assassin?" he demanded, getting angry now to know that the girl had turned to such a life. Arya shrugged at him rather than correcting him or offering him any other answer.

"Why are you here? To kill me?" He snapped. Arya's eyes widened slightly.

"No" she replied "If you were to die, you would have done so in the jaws of Nymeria."

"Nymeria?"

"The dire wolf leading the pack that has been terrorising this area for almost ten years" she replied and Gendry watched her with morbid fascination as she took off her cloak and hung it on the hook by the door where he usually hung his. Beneath it she wore breeches and a form fitting tunic made from soft leather. His breath caught at the way it clung to her figure, proving that she was now very much a woman and not at all to be mistaken for a boy, as he had done so many years ago.

"Are you going to keep staring at me or are you getting me a drink?" she asked him sarcastically, sounding amused.

"Does your lord husband know you're here?" Gendry replied, remembering that Arya Stark was supposed to have been married to Ramsay Bolton many years ago.

Arya laughed at him. Outright laughed as though he'd told a joke

"If you believe that I would have agreed to marry anyone, let alone him- when I would sooner spit in his eye and gut him before his men….. well then I think I'll be on my way" she said seriously, turning to glare at him.

"I mourned you when I heard of your death" Gendry told her quietly, still staring at her as he laid down his hammer and his sword.

"As did I" Arya replied, confusing him further.

"But you are here. You are Arya Stark" Gendry said.

Arya shook her head and replied in a whisper "I am no one."

He tilted his head, looking more confused than ever "Why are you here?"

She didn't answer right away. Instead she moved around the space that was both his place of work and his home as though she had lived there as long as he had; easily finding her way to the chest where he kept goblets and cup and things. She pulled out two, along with a pitcher, which she took to the keg of mead he had under a cloth in the corner of his house by his bed. He watched her fill it, watched her go to his table and sit on it rather than the chair.

 _Ever the highborn lady_ , he snorted to himself in amusement. He was surprised when she filled both cups with mead before throwing hers back, downing it in one.

"Seeing as I had to get my own drink and you've yet to find your tongue, should I keep myself company as well?" she asked him, finally looking back at him once she had a second drink in her hand.

"How long have you been here?" he asked her, moving towards her and taking the cup she had filled for him, sitting on the table at the other end to where she sat, not trusting himself to sit any closer to her.

"Almost a week" she replied, smirking at him over the lip of her cup "You still sleep fitfully and you still snore like the bull you fashioned your helmet after."

Gendry stared at her in wonder.

"You were in here while I slept?"

She just grinned and glanced towards the little loft above his sleeping place where he stored food and spare materials for making his weapons. He realised that was the only answer he would get on the subject but it was enough

"It was you who kept slashing open the ties on the door" he accused her after downing his own mead and going back for more.

"You needed to install the bolts or you'd be a chew toy by now" She told him, shrugging unapologetically.

Arya smirked as he fell to asking her questions of where she had been and everything that had happened to her since she had run away from this place so long ago. She told him of the death of her lady mother, of the murder of her brothers, all she knew of her sister. She told him of the many lives she had lived in Braavos. Of what it had been like to be blind, to be deaf, to be dumb.

All the while they drank and Arya found herself shuffling closer to him, realising suddenly how long it had been since she had sat with anyone and spoken of… well anything. Everything she had done in Braavos, everything in Kings Landing, everything since the day King Robert and his circus had arrived at Winterfell so many years ago, everything since then had robbed her of any kind of friendship. As she sat there watching the way Gendry stared at her with wide eyes, trying to imagine her as Cat of the Canals singing her cockles, Arya realised that the last time she had spent any time with anyone like this was before King Robert arrived.

It had been with Jon, who had always been her favourite brother and who had loved her for the ways she got so grubby and fought so hard about everything. Oftentimes over the years since that fateful King's visit, Arya had convinced herself that she was living life. That had the King not come, had her father and mother not been killed, had her family not been torn apart and had she not escaped, heading for the Night's Watch to find Jon, Arya Stark would have been forced to marry some lord who would expect her to act like a lady and would expect her to bear him sons and let him fuck her when he got drunk.

She had comforted herself that had none of the horrors happened, she would've gone mad from boredom and been whipped and abused by a husband she didn't want for not being a proper lady. She could never have seen so much of the world, never have become a water dancer of Braavos, never have killed a man just by giving him a coin.

But as Arya sat there, feeling herself start to get drunk as she actually talked to a man who had been her friend, her sidekick and even her protector once, she realised how much she had missed having people in her life that she could talk to, that she could love, that loved her.

"Why did you come here Arya?" Gendry asked her much later after she had run out of things to tell him. Arya regarded him for a moment, noticing the bright blue hue of his eyes as they drank in the sight of her.

"I'm a warg" she admitted softly "I can see through the eyes of animals…. The dire wolf that has been running the pack here so long was my pet once. Nymeria. I had to set her loose when she attacked Joffery Lannister. In a dream I saw you through her eyes. Wolves are precision hunters. They don't just attack, they plan it. I knew she was going to kill you….. and the Many-Faced God sent me here to stop that from happening…" Arya trailed off.

The Waif had told her she knew why she was coming and Arya had told herself all along the way that it was because the God of Death was not ready to receive Gendry yet… but as Arya stared into his bright blue eyes that were bluer that the skies over Winterfell on a clear day, she wondered if that was all she had been sent here for.

"I can't believe you were here a week before revealing yourself" he said to her quietly, staring at her sideways as he leant back on his hands. "I know it's something you would do…. But I still can't believe you were here that long and didn't even say hello to me."

He looked a little sad and a bit offended as he watched her with those eyes and Arya felt something inside herself squirm guiltily. She remembered the day she had arrived, she'd intended to find out about him before greeting him, but when she had actually seen him again….

"I did say hello to you" Arya told him just as softly. "You were over at the tavern… I pretended to be a new serving wench."

Gendry's eyes widened in horror as he recalled a vague memory of being at the tavern, drinking with the Brotherhood. He'd had more to drink that usual and they had all noticed the pretty new serving wench. The dress she had worn had been too tight, straining across her breasts, pulling them together and pressing them towards the low cut neckline. It had hugged her form tightly, showing off an hourglass figure like he'd never seen before. It had been green, and her long silky brown hair had been loose, hanging forwards to frame her face.

She was not beautiful in the way he come to regard many women in King's Landing. Hers was a wilder beauty with high sharp cheek bones and a longer face. She had a decidedly Northern cast to her features and the eyes of a predator. As Gendry stared into the grey depths now, he felt a flicker of recognition and his cheeks grew warm as he remembered the way he had treated that particular serving wench.

Once she had delivered the drinks to the table she'd watched him for a moment before turning away. Gendry closed his eyes as he recalled the way he'd grabbed her wrist and spun her back to them, tugging her down onto his lap until she'd been straddling him. His cheeks heated even more as he remembered the way he'd run his hands over her body and buried his face in the cleavage she'd had on display.

He remembered the way he had kissed her, trying to be cheeky with her and the way he'd delved his hands beneath the skirts of her dress, running them up her firm, silky thighs. He could even hear her whispering the words in his ear as she'd caught his hands and pulled them away

_Not Today._

"You mean the one I….?" Gendry was afraid to look at her, afraid to have her confirm it. Since that night he hadn't been able to get Arya Stark out of his head. He blushed harder when he heard the way she laughed at him and he could tell without opening his eyes that she was nodding.

"I'd intended to find out if you recognised me and for a moment I thought you had…." Arya told him trailing off at the way he kept his eyes closed as though he could block out the awkwardness he felt for having done that to her.

"I did" he murmured, slowly opening his eyes to look at her and trying to stop blushing when she looked so amused.

"I didn't put it together that you were Arya Stark…. But since then I haven't been able to get you out of my head" he admitted, realising that the mead had probably gone to his head but not really caring "I kept picturing the way you glared at me before you left, when you thought I'd bedded that whore."

Arya was silent as she watched him, sipping more mead from her cup, those grey eyes regarding him over the rim and Gendry found himself caught up in the memory of having her straddling his lap and kissing his lips. Of the way she had rocked her spread cunt against the hard cock in his breeches and the way she'd tangled her hands in his hair as she'd moved her tongue with his when he'd stuck it in her mouth. He could feel himself growing hard just thinking about it.

After a long time of staring at each other, Arya slid off the table, taking the empty pitcher with her, intending to refill it. She was halfway across the room when she heard and felt him move. He trailed after her and Arya was acutely aware of the fact that the keg of mead was stored conveniently close to his sleeping place. Arya tensed when she felt him come up to stand right behind her.

"Why did you leave Arya?" he asked her quietly and Arya put down the pitcher, turning to look at him, finding him standing directly in front of her.

She smirked a little to know he had grown tall enough that she still had to look up at him, finding that when it was Gendry she didn't mind so much.

"What do you mean? When I left years ago?" she clarified. Gendry nodded.

"Why couldn't you have just stayed here with me? I wanted you to. You knew I wanted you too."

"No I didn't. All I knew was that you fancied yourself a knight of the Brotherhood and wanted to stay here, even though before that you'd wanted to come with me to find Robb and my mother. Why did you decide you wanted to stay here instead of coming with me to my family?" Arya argued with him.

"Because here it didn't matter that I'm just a bastard!" Gendry told her, eyes flaring angrily "I wanted you to stay here with me, where it wouldn't matter that I'm a bastard and you're a high-born lady. If I'd gone with you, you'd have been stuffed into a dress and expected to be the lady you were born as, married off to some drunken useless Lord; and I would've been stuck in some army forge when I wasn't being sent off to die for your damned brother."

Arya glared at him.

"You know something Gendry…. You and Hot Pie were the only friends I had and we'd left Hot Pie behind to bake his bread. It was down to just you and me looking out for each other," Arya began, snapping at him coldly "You were supposed to be there! You were supposed to help me fight the Hound! You were supposed to help me find my family! You were supposed to come with me back to Winterfell! But you decided you wanted to stay here where you could play soldier and fuck a whore who was actually your half-sister!"

Arya shoved her hands against his hard chest as hard as she could, trying to drive him back from her, rediscovering the jealousy she had felt back then as a ten year old and only now realising that she'd probably been in love with him back then. She snarled like a wolf when he caught both of her wrists in his strong grip and dragged her closer, glaring down at her as he pulled her until she was all but flush against his body.

"I never fucked her!" he spat at her "I saw how it upset you and I bloody well followed you! Because I damned well wanted you, Arya! I wanted you! But you were just this feisty little kid trying to get back to her mother!"

Arya slapped him, managing to wriggle her wrist free of his grip, and Gendry glared at her as the hand print appeared on his cheek.

"If that were true you would've come with me" she hissed angrily in his face.

"You would've preferred I had followed you to the Red Wedding?" Gendry spat back at her coldly, describing the horrid event as others did, others who'd had no family there. "You'd rather that I'd followed you to the place where Walder Frey murdered your mother, your brother and his pregnant wife? Where you would've gotten us both killed by running in there and trying to fight them even though they slaughtered your brother's army? The Hound saved your damned life dragging you away from that place! I wouldn't have been able to! And you and me would be just as dead as the rest of the Starks, or you'd have wound up married off to a Frey if the soldiers didn't decide to rape you to death instead."

Arya hit him again, using her free hand to punch him repeatedly just as she'd done at ten.

"The Brotherhood had told me they'd heard rumours there would be foul play at the wedding of Edmure Tully, and that they'd heard the Ironborn had taken Winterfell with the help of Theon Greyjoy. I was going to tell you about those things that night. You were supposed to stay here with me where you would be damned well safe! But you had to be a selfish little idiot and run off in a tantrum!"

"And look where it got me" Arya hissed at him, daring him to look at exactly who she was now as she pulled some of her hard earned tricks and slipped out of his grip, across the room in a flash, blades drawn and glinting in the firelight.

"I've seen the whole world, but for beyond the Wall" Arya told him. "I've lived the life of an ugly little girl whose father beat her so badly that the left side of her face had caved in, I've suffered through the knocks and scrapes and falls and the ridicule of being blind. I've learned how to kill a man without entering the same room as him. Had I wished it I could have killed everyone in Hollow Hill before any of you knew I was here. I can see without watching, hear without listening, taste without eating. I can live two moons on naught but sea water."

Arya glared at him as she took a breath, preparing to spew out some of the things she hadn't told him about.

"I've lived and trained in a pleasure house of Lys, lived the life of a high priestess and the life of a lowly whore. I've killed three thousand nine hundred and fourteen people and dealt within the realms of death far beyond the imaginings of the likes of you" Arya squared her shoulders as she gazed at him icily.

"And what have you done Gendry Waters?" she hissed "What have you done about the fact that your  _real_ mother was  _not_  some serving wench in an alehouse in Fleabottom and your father was King Robert Barratheon?"

Gendry stared at her, his eyes narrowed nastily.

"What do you mean my mother was not some serving wench from King's Landing?" Gendry asked her dangerously, and Arya knew he was sensitive about the topic of his mother. She laughed nastily anyway.

"Tell me something Gendry, why do you think an 'unknown lord' would pay double to have a lowly whoreson bastard of the King trained as a smith? Why do you think the same 'unknown lord' would pay a man to take in an 'orphaned' boy?"

Gendry stared at her, clearly not liking the tenor of her questions.

"Did you know that before Joffery was born of the incestuous union of Cersei and her twin brother Jaime Lannister, the King and Queen had another son who 'died of fever'?" Arya asked him quietly.

"In a pit of snakes, where the maester was of Lannister loyalty, do you think perhaps such a maester might drug the heir to throne, the trueborn first son of Robert Barratheon and Cersei Lannister? Do you think that such a maester would seek to gain the throne for a child of strictly Lannister blood to usurp the drunk King? The firstborn son of that marriage was a boy with thick black hair, a boy who supposedly died of fever when Cersei fell pregnant with Joffery. Around the time an 'orphan bastard' of the King was delivered to Tobho Mott and paid to train him as an apprentice blacksmith. Do you think perhaps the timing was coincidental?"

Arya crossed her arms over her chest, sheathing her daggers now that she could hurt him with words.

"What are you saying?" Gendry demanded angrily "That I'm actually the true heir to the Iron throne? That my mother was actually Queen Cersei? That she paid to have me killed?"

Arya just kept on looking at him.

"Didn't you tell me all you remember of your mother was her shining golden hair?"

"Why did you tell me all this?" he snarled after pouring himself another drink and downing it. He stalked slowly towards her. "Why would you tell me lies about being the heir to a throne?"

"It's a shame you didn't come with me when I left Gendry" Arya told him softly "If you had you would know the facial expressions and voice inflections of a lie…. You would be a trained assassin, a servant of the God of Death and of the Many-Faced God. You might even  _be with me_ ….. But I am a collector of truths, and very good at finding them…..You are no more heir to the throne than anyone else. The Maesters and the King's Council seek to crown Danerys Targerian, the true heir as the only living descendant after the Mad King. The throne was never Robert Barratheon's to take, nor was the position of the Hand my father's to take. You could claim it, as the rightful son of a man crowned king, but Stannis would object. The Targerian girl is on her way here with three her dragons to reclaim her throne and she has an army beyond imagining, including the snakes and spiders that reside within the King's Court, an army that is the only chance standing between Westeros and the dead horde beyond the Wall…. The point is, you were never a bastard."

Gendry glared at her as though he had no idea what to do with the information and Arya realised she had forgotten one of her many lessons. A collector of truths was not fit to keep them should she use them to unjustly hurt those whom the truths were about.

"Why did you come here Arya?" Gendry asked her again, glaring at her angrily.

Arya shrugged "The Waif told me that the Many-Faced God had a new lesson for me to learn, one I could not learn from them in Braavos. They gave me back my face and sent me on my way without another word. I saw you through Nymeria's eyes the night before, so here I am." Arya crossed her arms tighter as Gendry strode all the way across the area separating them.

"And what do you think that lesson was?" He demanded "How to hurt the people you call friend?"

Arya snorted "I'd learned that from you before I left, remember?"

A long time ago, Arya Stark, and all the faces No One wore, had locked away her heart in an icy chamber with thicker walls that that of the Wall in the north. But as she looked up into the bright blue eyes of the man before her and saw how she had hurt him and unsettled him she knew that was not the lesson she was here to learn. She could see how just by being here she had disturbed his world, and Arya knew in her soul what it was that the Many-Faced God hoped to teach her by bringing Gendry back into her life.

Many of the Wars that had ravaged Westeros had been abandoned when all the fighting men died or fled the cold. Here Gendry lived as a Smith, a knight of the Brotherhood Without Banners, a simple man dedicated to his craft and little else. She knew from her time here that he had no wife and had sired no bastards, that he was often kind to those around him, in spite of the cards the Gods old and new, had dealt him.

Since she'd left the House of Black and White, Arya had been questioning what it could be that she would be learning in this lesson. It was not the first time she had had to venture from the House of Black and White to learn the many skills she possessed. But it was the first time she had left carrying the name and face she had been born with. It was the first time the Waif had hugged her and whispered goodbye on her departure and Arya suspected that she was never to return to Braavos or the House of Black and White. She knew in her soul that if she tried to return to them she would only find death and she was not ready for that. Not today.

Arya flinched in surprise when he grabbed her, taking hold of her upper arms and actually lifting her off her feet. She stared up at him and was surprised by the anger and pain in his bloodshot blue eyes. He shook her gently.

"Why Arya? Why did you leave? Why couldn't you have just stayed here with me?" he yelled in her face.

Arya stared back at him calmly.

"Stayed here and what, Gendry?" Arya asked him quietly, suddenly aware of how close he was to her and the way his lips looked as she stared at them, remembering the way it had felt when he'd kissed her last week.

"Stayed here with you and what? Been a good little girl who did women's chores and learned women's crafts?" she asked him.

He shook his head no.

"Then what? Stayed here and grown up as a part of the Brotherhood? Married and had kids like a good little woman is supposed to? Raised a troop of soldiers to send off to war for no one in particular? Watched any children I might have had die in this cold or in war for nothing, like my whole family has done?" she demanded, hating herself for the crack in her voice.

"I just wanted you to stay with me" Gendry whispered to her brokenly, staring into her eyes and letting her see the pain swirling there.

"What? Where I'd be safe, you mean?" She asked, taking offense.

Again he shook his head no. "Just where you'd be with me," he whispered to her.

She stared into those eyes searchingly, comparing the Gendry from now to the Gendry she had left behind so long ago.

"That's not true and you know it Gendry. Even if I'd had no one else to go after, staying here with you…. I couldn't have. You wanted me to be a lady! You ran around calling me M'lady and thinking that a girl like me should wear dresses and know how to sew things, that punching you and fighting with you was unladylike. You….."

"I never wanted that Arya" Gendry told her giving her another little shake before standing her back on her feet. "When we were running around, running from Harrenhal, running from Ser Lorch, did you hear me complaining that you were good with that little sword? Did I complain that you knew how to ride a horse and how to steal stuff and how to shoot a bow? It wasn't me who tried to change you when we got here and you know it."

"So then why didn't you come with me? Why couldn't you have come with me to Winterfell?" Arya asked him, gritting her teeth when she felt her eyes begin to sting.

"You weren't headed for Winterfell. You were headed for Robb and his army, where you'd have had me serve him after serving worthless cunts all my life. I wanted to be here, where I'd have family in the Brotherhood"

"I told you then that I could've been your family" Arya whispered, a lump the size of a golf ball stuck in her throat keeping her from speaking louder. Arya jumped when Gendry looked down at his feet and let go of her completely.

"I wanted that" he whispered back to her sadly "But I told you then that if we went to your brother, we couldn't be family. To them you were a highborn lady and I was nothing but another bastard to serve someone claiming to be king. Do you remember I told you that? That you couldn't be my family with them? That you'd have to be my Lady?"

Arya stared into his eyes when he looked back up at her, tears stinging and threatening to escape from her own.

"I couldn't go with you because I didn't want to call you my Lady, Arya…. I just wanted to call you mine."

Arya stared at him, her heart leaping free of its icy cage even as the first tear she had cried in many years slipped down her cheek. Now she knew what the Many-Faced God had sent her here to learn. He'd sent her to learn how to love again and how to measure the worth of living.

Gendry's hands were rough, calloused from hard work as he bought them up to cup her cold cheeks and Arya felt the intoxication of his touch in ways that the mead had not affected her. His eyes asked her permission even as he stepped closer to her and leaned towards her, staring hungrily at her lips. When he finally kissed her, Arya sighed, leaning into the warm touch and letting it fill her up.

Carried away by the sensation, Arya Stark and Gendry Baratheon lost themselves in the feel of each other and banished the cold of winter with the heat of their love for one another, collapsing into bed together, each experiencing the true expression of love for the very first time.


End file.
